What if
by Rosie eisoR
Summary: A series of oneshots. Changing the little things that made a big difference. Numair chooses to stay behind rather than go to Carthak. Jon marries Josiane. Neal stays at the university.
1. a view to a death

This is intended to be a series of one-shots, each chapter unrelated to the next. Most of them are things I wrote when trying to write the next chapter of a fic.

I came up with this one when attempting to revamp 'Never give up the fight'. That isn't a plug for it, don't read it :P Enjoy.

* * *

Jon wiped his sweating brow, noticing that the room had suddenly become uncomfortably hot.

Instantly, Gary was by his side, his attention attracted by the movement. "Jon, is something wrong?" His tone and eyes were anxious, and Jon knew his cousin only meant well, but this hawk-like scrutiny of everything he did was beginning to get on his nerves.

Everybody was watchful of the heir to the throne. In this time of sickness, it was imperative to ensure that Jonathan was not contaminated with the deadly virus. And he knew that. He did.

It was just annoying.

In fact, the only person who wasn't constantly badgering the Prince about the state of his health was seated across the room, staring at the book shelf with thoughtful purple eyes. Alan had been... different since Francis' death. Almost subdued. Gone was the tart humour that never failed to make Jon grin. The fiery temper that had always seemed to simmer underneath the surface had been doused. Jon wasn't sure what to make of the newly sombre page now.

Alan turned, almost as if he had sensed Jonathan's gaze. The Prince flashed him a smile that refused to be steady. Abruptly, Alan stood, acknowledged the two cousins with a curt nod, and left the library.

"Jon. Jon!" he suddenly heard Gary call, with the exasperation of someone who was not being paid attention to.

"Hmm?" Jonathan replied absently. A headache was beginning to pound in his temples. He rubbed them in an attempt to lessen the throbbing pain, but nothing happened.

Gary let out a sigh. "Is something wrong?"

Jon got to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process. His head was beginning to swim, and he now felt unbearably overheated. "No, nothing!" he snapped. He couldn't be ill. He didn't have the Sweating Sickness. It was unthinkable.

As he turned to leave, his legs collapsed beneath him.

* * *

Heat enveloped him, swamped him, drowned him in waves of fiery orange.

He had no concept of time passing, only of the slow burning away of his life, like a candle flickering out.

Occasionally, he would take in long, shuddering breaths, and find the air tasted of perfumed smoke. His ears rang with a near-constant hum of jumbled words, and when he opened his dry eyes, he could make out obscure, ghostly forms through the hazy mist. When he closed his eyes, eternal blackness beckoned.

For a brief second, the fire shrank away from its scorching of his mind. He could think clearly. It all added up – the voices, the blackness, the mist.

He was in the Realms of the Dead.

He shuddered violently, the fire roaring in full force once more. Was this truly death? Had he left everybody behind? His parents, Gary, Raoul, Alex, Alan –

Alan.

An image of the small page swam before him, offering peace, a chance to rest at last. "Alan," the Prince mumbled through cracked lips. "Alan." The image turned away. Desperation filled Jonathan. Alan could save him. "ALAN!"

Another figure was blossoming out of the dancing flames. At first, Jon took it for a sturdy knight, prepared to fight to the death for his country. Was this a knight who would have fought for King Jonathan? Then, he realised it was a woman, not beautiful, but oddly attractive all the same. Power and strength radiated from her being. Her short red hair whipped around her face as she readied her sword to face an enemy.

Jonathan felt sorry for her, although he couldn't say why. His attention began to focus on the thing he had pushed aside for so long. The thing that offered the only respite from the endless heat that ate at him from the inside.

He paused at the edge of the Black God's Realm, as the shadowy figure raised its staff in welcome. Doubt now set in. He looked back.

"Cousin, it is the end. You need your rest, you deserve it."

Jon searched for the owner of the voice and found Roger, watching him calmly. His cousin's presence was somehow reassuring. "But – Mother, and Father..."

"I will take care of them," Roger promised.

Jonathan nodded gratefully, his attention now fixed on a ball of amethyst fire, shooting towards them. "What's that?" He was surprised to find that he had expected to see this.

Roger's face had blanched. "That must be the sender of the fever. Go, before they can finish us both off!"

The alarm in his cousin's voice was real. Jonathan nodded, noting an odd coolness now setting in. The fire had receded finally. Oddly enough, he knew now why he pitied the warrior woman. He pitied her because she would never exist. "Take care of them all, Roger," he requested, before surrendering himself to the darkness.

The purple fire dissipated as the Crown Prince of Tortall was enveloped in shadow. In its place came a small, redheaded boy. "Jon, come-" He stopped abruptly, eyeing Roger with suspicion and with something strangely like hatred. "Where is he?"

"It is with my deepest regrets that I have to inform you that my dearest cousin has passed away."

The boy stopped short, his unusual purple eyes narrowing, and weighing up the information. Roger almost expected him to bow. He certainly expected him to give in and accept that his friend was dead, perhaps with tears, perhaps in silence.

He did not expect what the young page actually did. Which was to spit at the Duke's feet. "You," he whispered. "You did this. I hate you."

Roger regarded the little boy, considering the comment. Finally, "Good."


	2. making a difference

His eyes were beginning to strain from reading the small text. The candle flickered and hissed out as the flame sank into the melted wax. 

Nealan of Queenscove sighed and called a ball of emerald green light to hand. He shut the book and replaced it on the shelf, next to all the other tomes.

Lately, Neal had begun to feel... dissatisfied with life. His thirst for knowledge was too easily quenched here at the university. Sometimes he wondered what life would have been like, if he had pursued his ideas of knighthood. The heartbreak in his parents' eyes had stopped him pursuing it, though. The loss of his brothers was still too raw.

And, besides, did the realm really need a knight who preferred reading to fighting?

* * *

Keladry of Mindelan stopped her packing to scrub at her eyes furiously.

_I am stone. Calm. I am stone._

Stone didn't constantly have to ask directions from the palace servants because its sponsor hadn't given her the right directions. Stone didn't have to clean all the horses belonging to its sponsor and friends, every night. Stone didn't have to complete menial tasks during free time, leaving no time for practicing or homework.

Keladry of Mindelan did.

_Stone. I am stone._

For once, the Yamani pretence didn't help. Frustrated, the girl sank down onto her bed. No, this was not her bed. She would never see this room again, never have to wake up to another day of torture again. Never have her clothes stolen again. Never have her hair pulled, her homework taken, her chair taken from under her as she was about to sit down.

Never again, because this time, Kel was ready to give in.

All she had wanted was one chance. From the beginning, none of them had allowed her to succeed, not the training master, not her sponsor or his friends, not the King. And especially not Alanna the Lioness. The one person who would have understood, and all she did was stay away from the palace.

Kel resumed packing.

_Stone. Nothing can touch me._

_Never again._

* * *

Alanna the Lioness braced her hands on the wall, the wind carelessly flinging her loose hair around. She didn't seem to notice it flying across her face. Her expression was impassive; her unusual violet eyes watched a coach draw away from the palace.

Keladry of Mindelan had given in.

"You couldn't have helped her, Alanna," a quiet voice said from behind. "It wasn't the right time, that's all. The people just aren't ready."

His Champion turned to face him, eyes cold enough to freeze a blizzard in its tracks. Silently, she pushed past the King, heading for the door.

He knew she'd be upset; the first girl page was a failure. She'd put so much hope into this year, and it was a big letdown, he understood that. But she didn't have to take it out on him.

He sighed. "Where are you going?"

Jonathan didn't expect a response. Normally, Alanna wouldn't have bothered to give one. But today, over the noise of her boots clattering down the stairs, he heard, "Mindelan."


	3. picture perfect

"What do you think?"

He stared, entranced, at the picture they made. She was an ice princess. Silvery blonde hair was twisted out of sight into a neat pleat, a few curls tumbling loose. Her bright blue eyes shone with deceptive innocence. He knew those eyes had seen more than he dared think about.

His own blue eyes were drawn to his figure. He knew he was handsome; the many girls he had courted told him so. But his appearance seemed somehow... incomplete. The picture didn't show the hunger ever present in his eyes, the faraway expression his face would often form, the restlessness in his pose.

The picture didn't show any of these because it was a betrothal portrait. The longing was not for her, he had finished with the princess seated beside him. The expression was not for her either, he knew too much of what lay behind the frozen exterior. He yearned for another, altogether different person. Somebody who had temperamental fire coursing through her veins, not slow, deliberate ice. A person who he would never, _could_ never tire of, as he had already tired of his betrothed. A person who would never be considered for the title of 'Queen'. A person who made him unable to consider any other.

"Do you like it, your Highness?" There was a touch of impatience in the artist's tone. Perhaps he thought Jonathan had spent too long looking upon the face of his "beloved". In truth, the reverse was applicable; Jonathan had heard his future wife had offered a closer inspection of her body for a favourable replica. She was beautiful, true, enticing, bewitching... But fake. Conniving. Manipulative. Deceitful. Hardly his beloved.

His beloved.

The picture blurred. Instead of a calm blue, the eyes of his picture companion were purple. Red hair was ruffled not perfectly combed, her skin was lightly tanned instead of deathly pale. He yearned to hold that hand, to press his lips to hers, to make her his.

For she was not his. His own painted face transformed. He looked thinner, older. Brown hair, in need of a cutting, flopped into his eyes, kind, hazel and twinkling.

Jonathan clenched his fist by his side. She wasn't George Cooper's either. He conjured up an image of this mysterious Shang Dragon. By past preference, his hair was dark. He grinned mischievously at the Prince, flirtatious, yet friendly.

Flirtatious. Flirting with his Alanna.

"Does his highness not find it an excellent likeness?" inquired a new voice.

Jonathan, with difficulty, tore his eyes from the painting. Josiane. His Josiane. His because she willed it, because his mother willed it, and because Alanna had rejected him. His cheeks still burned as he thought of the desert scene.

"Yes, of course," he replied, giving the painter - whose attention was fixed on the Copper Isles princess like a moth to a flame - a smile. "Wonderful. Mother will be pleased."

A frown knit her pale brows ever so slightly. "Your mother isn't the one I'm marrying," she pointed out with a smile.

Jonathan considered this to be oddly ironic, since it was because of his mother that he was marrying the Copper Islander anyway.

Partly. Some small bit of him hoped Alanna would hear of his betrothal and return to claim him. That bit shrank with the disappointment of getting through every day without her face, every day without her presence in the Bazhir ritual.

"How very true-" he swallowed tightly, reminding himself of the Shang Dragon, before adding the affectionate, "my dear."

She giggled and placed a hand on his arm. "Come, I want you to see my dress."

Resigned, the future King of Tortall put aside all thoughts of the Lioness and went to follow his future Queen.

* * *

Jonathan glanced up at the redheaded knight. Alanna sighed and offered him a tight smile, apparently unaware how much he ached to take her into his arms.

"You hate me," he said softly, feeling it needed to be said, to relieve this unbearable tension between them. She had returned two months back, and this was only the second time she'd allowed them to be alone together.

She flinched. "No. Never." She began examining her calloused palms in earnest as he waited expectantly for the unsaid 'but'. "Jon, I hate _her_. Please-" She stopped herself just in time. "Look, the poison was her, I know it! Why wait for the spies? You have to take action before she manages to kill you!"

She had a point.

Since he had become King unofficially, accidents had begun to happen. Accidents and assassination attempts, that was. Knives thrown, snakes in his bed, and more poison than he cared to remember. They were awaiting the response to the identity of the person thought to have prepared the wine that evening. The latest attempt on his life. He was actually fortunate that the Copper Island assassins were so poor at their profession.

His eyes travelled back to Alanna. Shadows flickered over her face, dimly illuminated by the candlelight. She looked far older than she had when she'd been his. He was now resigned to the fact that she wasn't his, and had even begun to consider her extraordinarily attractive travelling companion in brief fantasies about single life. Marriage was far more trouble than he had ever given it credit for.

"Your Majesty." The man bowed as he entered. "It is the belief of both myself and my colleagues that a Mister Nalur Zivon tended to your drinks this evening."

Alanna's eyes shot to his. He could almost read her thoughts. Nalur Zivon. It was a Copper Island name.

"Thank you, Sebastian," he said wearily, rubbing his temples. At least she hadn't persuaded Tortallans yet.

"Nalur Zivon is in the employ of her Royal Majesty. Perhaps the Queen would do better to choose her servants more wisely in the future." Sebastian bowed once more, awaiting further instruction. He just wished he could give it with a clear conscience. Was this all it was to be King? Worry about being killed, and order others' deaths before your own came?

"By the gods, Jon, you have to stop her," Alanna snapped. "Or I'll stop her." Her hand shifted to where her dagger must lie.

For a fleeting second, Jonathan considered it. Then, he shook his head. He wanted her as his Champion, not his assassin. "Too obvious."

But that was Alanna all over. She never left actions or decisions to others. He had to, though. If their Princess died in secret, the Copper Isles would declare war on Tortall, and he could hardly kill her himself in public. She would have to die in front of their spies, by the same methods they had plotted for him. He dragged in a breath. It was time, time to say goodbye. He gripped the arms of his chair, knuckles turning white. "Sebastian, would you be so kind as to see if Sir Myles would be willing to part with a little of the _gift _we talked about earlier?"

Sebastian bowed once more and left the room.

Jonathan released the arms of his chair. Easy, too easy. He leaned back, examining the ceiling, knowing Josiane lay sleeping above him. "Goodbye, dearest Queen," he murmured softly.

* * *

Thanks for all the reviews! I'm extremely flattered, which should be a good thing :P I have put chapter two up as a separate story, 'Shadow of Doubts'.


	4. these things we regret

"Alanna – she – she says you're not coming. She says you can't. She says it doesn't matter how much I yell at her, there's no way you'd come." He almost felt those expressive blue-grey eyes piercing through his back into his soul. Would she see the cowardice there? He couldn't – wouldn't? – turn around and see the disappointment in her eyes that gave the tremble to her voice. "She says I should ask you about it."

"Alanna says a lot of things," Numair said ruefully, rubbing his hands together. He finally turned to face his student, watching her tremulous eyes fix on his. He cursed Alanna for telling her before he had gotten a chance – now she probably wouldn't understand. Most likely, she'd invented some way of blaming herself. That was the normal way of things for teenagers. Never mind the fact that Daine acted older than any teenager he'd ever known – most of the time, at least.

She shifted her feet and glanced out the window. He could tell she was fighting tears back. "Is she right?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes, magelet, I'm sorry. I'm not coming."

He watched her face sadden and her lip tremble slightly before she firmed her mouth. He knew why she was upset, and he wished he could go to Carthak with her, to keep her company, and to keep her safe. She might be precisely the toy Ozorne was looking for. But there were other people who could protect her just as well as he could. And those other people hadn't heard from spies that the Emperor was ready to cut their heads off as soon as they set foot on Carthaki soil. King Jonathan hadn't forbidden those other people to go.

"Why not?" She raised her chin defiantly. Numair understood the gesture; it was to show that it didn't matter to her. But her voice betrayed that it did.

"Magelet, I can't. I'm sorry. I'd only upset things if I went." He paused, running his hands through his hair. "You'll be fine. I promise."

* * *

He lived to regret that promise. 

Daine had uncovered some bizarre distortion of her magic, which he was certain couldn't have been natural. All the scrolls he had studied forbid the theory. None of her magical lessons had shown a talent for necromancy.

Yet it had happened. His magelet had learnt to raise the mammalian dead.

Numair slammed his fist into the wall, biting back a yelp of pain. Stupid. So _stupid_. He should have known Ozorne would have taken an unhealthy interest in his old friend's student. He should have known, he should have forbidden her to go, he should have gone himself. He should have done anything except let them be separated.

"Numair?" a tentative voice asked. Thayet. She brought him back to the present, her green-hazel eyes wide with – with fear. He was scaring her.

He found he didn't care.

"How long?" he asked tersely. He had to know. He had to know everything. "How long has that gods-cursed son of a spidren had her?"

There was a pause. A long pause. He glanced at her, watching the uncertainty in her expression. After all these years, she still didn't know what he was capable of. "A – a week that we know of," she admitted finally.

"A week," Numair repeated coldly, biting off every word. He longed to rage at her, but knew it would get him nowhere. "One week. And may I ask why I hadn't been informed of it until now? May I ask why she hasn't been recovered yet?"

Thayet looked away from him, as though she saw in his eyes something that disturbed her. "Curse it, Numair, it's not that easy! Don't you think that I want her back as well? We can't very well declare war because he says she's started up some slave uprising! Just because we can't do anything doesn't mean we don't care as much as you do!"

His voice was quiet, full of steely control that almost scared him. "No, you're right," he agreed, getting to his feet. "Because I'm willing to do anything to get her back, _that_ means I care more than you do."

She also stood. He bit back a smile at that; Thayet wouldn't let him gain the "higher ground" that way. "Jonathan and I remember our responsibilities."

"As do I. I have a responsibility to Daine."

"And to your realm! We need you here if Ozorne is going to announce war! Which countries will stand by us if we harbour a wanted criminal, and gave protection to a girl who started an uprising? They'll say we're only looking for trouble."

Numair bowed to his monarch, in a mocking gesture of his allegiance. "Then I wish you the best of luck, but I can't afford to lose any more time."

"Numair, we'll–"

Whatever they were planning to do was lost in the slamming of the door.


End file.
